Yet, unfortunately for her (if less so for us observers) Thursday was the day Robert Jay QC, the inquiry counsel, discovered he'd been driving with the handbrake on. My former editor looked truly trapped in the headlights as she was exposed to a masterfully forensic filleting.

Her defence of the inflammatory splash "English defence league to become political party", that Northern & Shell – as a "Jewish company" – feared their growing influence was clearly panic usurping planning. Set aside the flawed logic of giving acres of publicity to a group you claim to reject, I doubt Richard Desmond would have desired she frame the socio-political persuasion of the company's titles in such overtly religious terms.

The theological undercurrent continued; when Jay asked Neesom whether someone could be both British and Muslim ("Of course they can", she pattered, incredulously), past Leveson inquiry proceedings offered little suggestion that examples of excruciating Daily Star juxtaposition ("Muslim thugs aged just 12 in knife attack on Brit schoolboy") would then be thrust aloft, betraying a worldview suggesting otherwise. Seizing the buck that seems to dangle so temptingly above the heads of Leveson witnesses, we were told that as the hands-on editor of a small editorial team this could in no way be her handiwork.

Amid the fluttered eyelashes and nervous laughs, Neesom's evidence at times bore comparison with fellow hackette Sharon "top spin" Marshall. A computer mock-up of a burning aeroplane beneath the splash headline "Terror as plane hits ash cloud" was not "untrue", as suggested by Jay, it was "dramatic" or "eye-catching", until, finally, with Jay's eyebrows showing no sign of returning earthward, an "over-egged pudding".

Sadly, this creep toward openness was short lived. "We do have a balanced agenda", Neesom insisted. She used the death of three Muslim brothers in Birmingham during last summer's riots ("Heroes" bellowed the headline) as an example of the paper's unheralded egalitarianism. Memo to Neesom: Nowhere in the article is there a mention the men were Muslims. A subbing error, no doubt.

After all, this was a newsroom without whistleblowing channels, without staff appraisals. Having a relatively small editorial team was not a hindrance, but "focused the mind" on accuracy. The words slapped off the desk before her like a rain-soaked copy of the Daily Star, "Britain's most successful newspaper", lest we forget.